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We’re back! And we’re so excited, in fact, that this episode is one trillion years long! You can listen to this until you literally perish in the inevitable heat death of the universe!

This month, we’re angry. We’re angry about Stephen Fry and his failure to engage in intersectionality; we’re angry about the worthlessness of awareness raising via Guy Pearce’s campaign with Beyond Blue; we’re angry about all the times Erin sang in this episode. We also talked about being in a relationship with another person with a mental illness, about talking to our pets, about Anna’s fear of failure, and about Justin Timberlake.

For our first go round in 2016, we decided to have an informal chat about all the things we’ve got planned for this year (spoiler: video games, crumpets, sea breezes). Unfortunately for you, we also got massively sidetracked into having a long rant about workplace safety and mental health.

This month, we invited our friend Kate Iselin to come and chat with us about the experience of being a person who is both extroverted and anxious. Sometimes it feels like “having a bad time” is a prerequisite for being a bona fide anxious person. It’s not true. Kate and Anna are both people who get energy from others, so they discussed why this can make it easy to have the anxiety experience invalidated.

We also answered a question about why income protection insurance (and other kinds of insurance) is so bad for people with mental illness, laughed loudly at inappropriate moments, talked about being the loser regular at the cafe, and pondered whether or not we even exist.

In Episode 5, which we did actually do (eventually) despite suggesting Anna might not be able to just stick at something for ten seconds at a time, we talked about what it means to know stuff about your illness. When you have a chronic illness, you can become pretty familiar with some of the jargon, and that can have an impact on the way you’re perceived as an unwell person, especially by professionals.

We also talked about how to care about someone with social anxiety, cost effective ways to seek mental health care, and a secret makeup tutorial YouTube channel that Erin and Anna are definitely* going to start.

Also, probably listen all the way to the end on this one. There’s a treat there. You can just fast-forward if you want.

We talked at some length (sorry) about what it can be like to have a mental health issue and a job, why “getting a job” is the wrong focus, and what the government should really be doing in order to support people through their employment, not just the “get a job” bit.

We also talked about how to be assertive at work, how to find motivation for extracurricular activity when your brain isn’t on board, Anna’s dog’s eye, and stuff we’ve been worrying about this month.

In Episode 3, we got a bit serious and talked about the link between creativity and mental illness. What does it mean to be a creative person? If you pursue a creative path, is having mental health issues inevitable? Plenty to read on that issue below!

We also talked about what it means to make friends as an adult, and useful things our psychs have told us. Then we ventured into adult colouring-in books, because we’re totally hip, and a little about why having a shithouse time of it can just be part of the true experience.

Turns out we have the motivation to record not one but two episodes of this podcast!

This month we talked about the Geelong Football Club, and the support they’ve shown to player Mitch Clark, who has depression. We also looked at some cool stuff Anna found on the internet, how to interpret emojis, mental health support in schools and things that might seem easy but sometimes aren’t.

Warning: this episode runs to an hour and 25 minutes. Sorry. We just had lots to say.

This is our first podcast! We were so excited to record it that we had a rap battle. That’s not all we did, though.

We also talked about Belle Gibson, and what it means when the media speculates about mental illness. Then we answered your listener questions in our Anxiety Aunts segment – things like, what are the most helpful things I can say to my anxious friend? and, how do I manage the small decisions?

Stuff we mentioned

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